Underwater Cultural Heritage Culture Routes: Green Island Lighthouse and SS President Hoover Shipwreck as Examples

Underwater Cultural Heritage Culture Routes: Green Island Lighthouse and SS President Hoover Shipwreck as Examples

All underwater cultural heritage sites are related to people in land. To promote and demonstrate the protection of valuable and important underwater cultural heritage works, is not only to establish museums, organize exhibitions, produce films, or publishg related publications, but also can combine elements with the people, things, and affairs related to the land area. Examples such as the lighthouse on the beach, the residents on the shore, the recovery of underwater objects, and the underwater archaeology sites can be used to develop into ‘Underwater Cultural Heritage Culture Routes (UCHCR)’, so that everyone could use the planned ‘UCHCR’ to have a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of the entire underwater cultural heritage and complete historical stories.
In 1937, the SS President Hoover sank in Zhongliao Bay of Green Island, which was on an important international waterway in the western Pacific, East of the city of Taitung. In order to thank the local residents that helped rescue the victims, the Green Island Lighthouse was built by the American Red Cross the following year. We intend to use the Green Island Lighthouse and the SS President Hoover Shipwreck as an example to plan the ‘UCHCR’, combined with the Green Island Lighthouse, the Green Island Visitor Center, and the Green Island Underwater Archaeological Station to tie all the shipwrecks’ story around the island. Because the island is famous for its clear water and good visibility, richness in corals, diversity of maritime life, and its abundance of underwater cultural heritage, we could also plan for divers the in situ diving guide routes and enlist the local divers to guard the site as volunteers, in order to let the shipwreck site not be a single underwater cultural site, but to enrich the tourist oriented activities and the interest in the island traveling.

Tung Ying-Ying

The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

November 2021

English

Tung, Ying-Ying. 2021. “Underwater Cultural Heritage Culture Routes: Green Island Lighthouse and SS President
Hoover Shipwreck as Examples.” Edited by Brian Fahy, Hans Van Tilburg, Bill Jeffery, T. Kurt Knoerl, and Riley
Smith. In Proceedings of Fourth Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage: Keelung,Taiwan,
and Virtual, November 1-5, 2021. The Museum of Underwater Archaeology URL:
https://apconf-much.org/proceedings/exhibits/show/apconf-muchproceedings/item/676

Asia Pacific Regional Conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage